Arguments For and Against Christianity

This document covers some of the typical arguments on the subject of
Christianity, as well as a few that I have come across myself. Not all of these
arguments have responses, and some of the responses presented are poor. Note
that I have tried to present arguments from both sides, but am of course biased.
If you think that there are better answers than the ones I have presented, have
an argument that I haven't covered, or you think a response is inadequate,
please don't hesitate to email me.
The argument for the Historical veracity of the Bible has grown large, so I've
placed it on a separate page.

Of course, I am not an expert in the many fields necessary to judge the
soundness of these arguments, especially when it comes to the historical facets
of Christ's resurrection. I have organized the arguments into the "poor" and
"good" categories based on my own opinions of the relative strengths of the
arguments and responses. Note also that I do not necessarily agree with all of
these arguments, and in fact find some of them quite flimsy.

Christian: The Bible is inerrant, so one can trust the things
that it says.

Doubter: Leviticus 11:20-22 says that locusts, katydids,
crickets, and grasshoppers have four legs. If you think that is insignificant,
try taking Dan
Barker's Challenge:

The conditions of the challenge are simple and reasonable. In each of the four
Gospels, begin at Easter morning and read to the end of the book: Matthew 28,
Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21. Also read Acts 1:3-12 and Paul's tiny version
of the story in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. These 165 verses can be read in a few
moments. Then, without omitting a single detail from these separate accounts,
write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection
and the ascension: what happened first, second, and so on; who said what, when;
and where these things happened.

Since the gospels do not always give precise times of day, it is permissible to
make educated guesses. The narrative does not have to pretend to present a
perfect picture--it only needs to give at least one plausible account of all of
the facts. Additional explanation of the narrative may be set apart in
parentheses. The important condition to the challenge, however, is that not one
single biblical detail be omitted.

No one has been able to respond to this challenge.

Christian: (Argument from Design) Complex things such as
watches and televisions are created by intelligent people. Surely the complexity
of life arising from simple DNA, as well as the other forms of complexity in the
universe also imply the influence of an intelligence.

Doubter: God is certainly complex, so who created him? If you
say that he has always existed, then why can't you instead say that the universe
(and life) have always existed? Besides, there are examples of poor "design" in
nature. The human eye, for example, has a blind spot when it could have been
"designed" like the squid's (that doesn't have one).

Christian: There can not be a causeless cause; someone must
have caused the universe to come into existence.

Doubter: Who caused God to come into existence? Like the
previous argument, this one is internally inconsistent.

Christian: There are laws of physics that govern the
universe. Someone must have created those laws.

Doubter: Firstly, the laws that physicists speak of
are merely mathematical constructs that describe the operation of the
universe that we observe. However, the core of your argument is about
the seemingly delicate and orderly mechanisms involved in the
operation of the universe (independent of our descriptions of them).
Who made them? My answer is "I don't know". However, given the huge
amount of knowledge that we lack about those mechanisms, it seems
premature to attribute them to a god.

Christian: The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that
the earth should be decaying, and that life should not be arising. So a creator
must be responsible for our existence.

Doubter: The Second Law only applies to a closed
system, so it is not applicable in this case, period. As an example, take
another open system, a human baby. Over the course of a lifetime, that person
will take in food (open system), and use it to grow. To say that the baby is
growing solely as a result of God is wrong.

Christian: Millions of people have felt God's influence. They
are witnesses to His truth.

Doubter: 1.9 billion people have felt God personally, and 1
billion have felt Allah personally. Are the Muslims crazy? If not, why are their
personal experiences less real?

Christian: I personally have felt the influence of God.

Doubter: How do you know that the sensation you felt didn't
come from your own brain? Can you show an instance where this communication with
God revealed something to you that you could not have possibly otherwise known?
What do you say about Muslims who feel Allah's influence?

Christian: Someone must have created the moral law that
every person feels obliged to follow. (C.S. Lewis' argument in Mere
Christianity)

Doubter: Many people do not feel the same moral law that
Christians feel. In some cultures polygamy is allowed, and many criminals see
absolutely nothing wrong with their actions. Morality is a sociological
creation that varies from culture to culture, and one would expect certain
similarities resulting from our self-awareness. Divorce is not the stigma it
once was, for example.

Also, we must address God's morality. If he created the concept of right and
wrong, then he must be beyond right and wrong, and it makes no sense to say that
he is good. If however we say that God is good, then God is subject to the
concept of morality, which must exist independent of him.

Christian: What have you got to lose by believing in God?
([Blaise] Pascal's Wager) If you're wrong you'll burn in Hell, and if you're
right nothing will happen to you when you die anyway.

Doubter: I can not be a hypocrite and play lip service to
something I can't believe. God would see right through that anyway. Besides,
this argument is very much mistaken. If there isn't anything after death, then
I can't afford to squander precious moments of my life worshiping a false god.

Aren't you worried that Allah is the true God, and that the personal experiences
you felt are your misinterpretations of his messages?

Christian: You're consideration of the logical side of God is
good. But eventually you will reach a point where you will have to put it aside
and take a leap of faith which transcends but doesn't contradict reason.

Doubter: This leap of faith would require that I stop thinking
about the insurmountable intellectual problems that I see. I would have to put
aside my doubts and just believe, without proof.

I worry that the thing I will accept without proof will be the wrong thing. How
do I know that there isn't a jealous god out there that hasn't revealed himself
to humans at all? How do I know that all religions are wrong, and that he won't
punish me when I die for believing in Christianity?

Christian: Many people who have carefully studied the evidence
have become Christians, like the literary scholar C.S. Lewis, the Lord Chief
Justice of England Lord Caldecote, and one of the creators of the American
space program, Dr. Werner von Braun. Likewise, Josh McDowell set out to
disprove Christianity and instead became one.

Doubter: Certainly there are a lot of people who became
Christians. But what about all the Christians who became agnostics or atheists?
Dan Barker was an ordained fundamentalist preacher for years before becoming an
atheist. John Dominic Crossan is a professor of religion at De Paul University
and a former Catholic priest that rejects the virgin birth, miracles, and the
resurrection of Jesus (but still considers himself a Christian). Joseph McCabe
is a Catholic priest turned atheist, and John Shelby Sprong once was an
Episcopal Bishop. Farrell Till, the editor of the Skeptical Review, was once a
minister and missionary for the Church of Christ.

Christian: The Dead Sea Scrolls show how the Bible has not
changed over the years. In Cave One at Qumran, a copy of Isaiah was found that
differed from the Masoretic text of 895 A.D. This manuscript, dating from 100
B.C., differed from the traditional text on only 13 points.

Doubter:

In Cave 4, 157 fragmentary biblical texts were retrieved, among which is every
book of the Hebrew canon, save Esther (and Nehemiah, which at that time was
considered as one book with Ezra). Eventually, these Cave 4 fragments revealed a
different story about the copying and transmission of Old Testament writings. In
some cases, especially 1-2 Samuel, Jeremiah, and Exodus, the fragments brought
to light forms or recensions of biblical books that differed from the medieval
Masoretic tradition. For instance, one text turned out to be a shorter Hebrew
form of Jeremiah, previously known only in its Greek version in the Septuagint.
It now seems that the fuller form of Masoretic tradition represents a
Palestinian rewording of the book. Another from Cave 4, written in paleo-Hebrew
script and dated from the early second century B.C., contains the repetitious
expanded form of Exodus previously known only in Samaritan writings, ("The Dead
Sea Scrolls and the Bible: After Forty Years," America, October 31, 1987, p.
302, emphasis added). (Farrell Till,
The Jeremiah Dilemma
)

Christian: All the Jews had to do to refute the Christian
claim that Jesus had risen would be to produce the body, but they couldn't
because he had risen.

Doubter: Roman custom was not to put a criminal in a tomb, but
to throw him in a common grave. Add to this that it wasn't until the Day of
Pentecost seven weeks later that the disciples started preaching about Jesus'
resurrection (Acts 2:1-42), and it would have been nearly impossible to produce
a body that would not been disfigured by decay.

Furthermore, the Romans would not have been interested enough in the claims
of one of the religious groups to bother to refute them.
Christian: There is evidence against the assertion that Roman
criminals were mandatorily put in a common grave. Archaeological evidence
shows that Jehohanen, a criminal charged with insurrection, was crucified and
allowed to be buried in his family's tomb.

The Romans would have been interested in proving Jesus' resurrection a
hoax because any popular Messianic movement having the hope of a restored
Israel was a threat to Pax Romana. Likewise, the Sadducee High Priests
were threatened by Jesus' teachings, and had some influence over Roman
government, as evidenced by their suggestion to Pilate that the disciples
may try to steal the body.

Christian: The Bible has over 24,000 manuscript copies. The
second most prevalent work is Homer's Iliad, with 653.

Doubter: And why wouldn't the Bible have been copied thousand
of times? Isn't it part of the nature of religions to preserve their most
sacred texts, and to "spread the word" as far as possible? The printing press
was invented to make many copies of the Bible. That is not in dispute. But we
can not prove the veracity of the Bible by vote.

Christian: Many manuscripts point to a first century date for
the writing of the gospels. The John Rylands papyri are a second century copy of
portions of John that were found in Egypt. The Bodmer papyri date to the end of
the second century, and the Chester Beatty papyri date only 50 years later.

Christian: There is a strange beauty in the mathematical
formulae that describe the universe. Einstein said, "The most incomprehensible
thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." Why is it that many of
the equations of nature are so simple, such as E=mc2?

Doubter: Mathematics is not as static as you assume it to be.
As an example, it turns out that Euclid could have chosen parallel lines to
cross, and we would have a consistent mathematical framework very different
from the one we use now. The reason why he didn't choose this is because he
felt that it didn't match what he believed about the world. In other words,
mathematics evolves toward simplicity, and attempts to model the real world.
Even E=mc2 is not as simple as it seems. The "m" really stands for
mo x sqrt(1-v2/c2).

Christian: (Anthropic Principle) The odds of life arising by
chance are incredibly slim. There is no way we could be here without the
influence of a creator. If many of the laws of nature were slightly different,
life would be unable to arise.

Doubter: That's like saying the odds of winning the lottery are
incredibly slim, so no one can win it without cheating. Please present your
calculations on the odds of life arising (along with the necessary assumptions).
How is your calculation more accurate than, say, the number of sand particles on
the earth? You assume that we know every single way in which life can form. It's
true that slight changes in our universe would probably have made life
impossible, but we can not judge the possibility of life in other universes for
lack of examples other than our own.

Christian: (Divine Accommodation) God revealed himself
incrementally over the millenia. At first he laid down laws, then he explained
them through Jesus. He allowed people certain sins because they would be unable
to follow his full glory from the start. Slavery is an example of one issue
that he has not officially condemned as of yet.

Doubter: If one accepts that there is a Christian God, this
argument is one that definitely offers a compelling explanation for the strange
moral contradictions we see in the Scripture. It is even more strong when
coupled with the next one.

Christian: The Bible has small errors resulting from the human
nature of the writers and copyists, but the meaning is generally from God.

Doubter: Depending on how important one finds the errors in the
Bible, this is a good way of approaching the Scripture since most of it is very
uncontradictory. But the way the Bible was written and compiled weeded out any
possible major contradiction, since no one would accept works that contradicted
major Christian tenets.

Christian: The books of Luke, John, Acts, and 1 Corinthians
say they were written by eyewitnesses and/or contemporaries. Over 500 people
witnessed Christ's resurrection (1 Corinthians 15).

Doubter: Biblical scholars have evidence that Matthew and John
were not written by their traditional authors (who didn't even sign their
names), and the 500 people only mentioned by Paul, who was trying to convince
others of the truth of Christ's resurrection. We have no writings from any of
those 500 people, nor do we have writings from the woman or women that
discovered the tomb empty. There are also no independent confirmations of
Jesus' having risen from the dead.

Christian: As far as the authors of the gospels is concerned,
we must realize that the manuscripts were known at the time to be authoritative
and to have been from their respective authors, so signatures were not needed.
The writers were trying not to distract the readers from the central issue,
Christ. Also, these works went through the apostolic age, when they were
confirmed for their accuracy, authenticity and reliability.

Christian: The science of archaeology has confirmed many
details of the gospels, and this tends to lend truth to the accounts. Sir
William Ramsay was a skeptic who became a Christian after researching these
issues. Luke, for example, references 32 countries, 44 cities, and 9 islands
without error.

Doubter: The Bible may have aspects that are indeed
historically correct, but it also contains problems like the differing accounts
of the resurrection. Certainly not all of the facts can be true, since they
contradict each other.

But even if parts of the Bible are factually correct, that doesn't mean that
every part is. After all, most myths (such as Santa Claus) have a foundation in
fact. It is usually the extraordinary facets such as flying reindeer or the
defeat of death that have been added later.

Christian: The writers of the gospels were known to be honest
men, and would not fabricate a story like the resurrection.

Christian: Scholars today believe that the New Testament books
were written within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses to the events, probably
between the years of 50 and 75 A.D. Even critics acknowledge that Paul wrote 1
Corinthians about 56 A.D., only 22 years after Jesus' crucifixion in 33 A.D.

Christian: Paul said that the majority of the eyewitnesses
were alive at the time, so they could have been used to verify the truth of his
statements. Similarly, there were hostile witnesses at the time that surely
would have corrected him had he made any inaccurate statements. Polycarp, a
disciple of John, said that the gospels were so supported that even the critics
accepted it.

Christian:The Antiquities of the Jews (93 A.D., XVIII
3,3 63-64) speaks of Jesus in the passage in 20, and this is not disputed:

...convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named
James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others."
(20:197-203)

Doubter: This passage is a forgery, the evidence for which is
the following:

No Christians prior to the 4th century refer to the supposed statement by
Josephus that "Jesus was the Christ".

The Christian Apologist Origen (185-254 A.D.) states unequivocally that
Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the Christ.

Josephus, as a strict Pharasaic Jew, could not make such a statement.

The passage was written in the style of Luke.

The passage seems to interrupt the flow, not being related to the
surrounding text.

The passage appeared only after the fourth edition.

Josephus would have said more about Jesus if he really believed him to be
the Christ.

Other copies of the Antiquities have been found to be heavily
interpolated with Christian references.

Origen knew Josephus' writings, and would have eagerly used any reference to
Jesus to support his case against the Jews. The passage inserted into
"Antiquities" is thought to be from Eusebius, who advocated fraud in the
interest of the faith. One is forced to wonder why, if there was no doubt of
Jesus' life, the early Christians felt the need to do such acts.

Likewise, the "Annals" of the Roman historian Tacitus were not quoted before
the fifteenth century, and when it was quoted, there was only one copy of the
Annals dating from the eighth century.

Doubter: Except for the story of the doctors at the Temple
at Jerusalem, the gospels are strangely silent about Jesus' life.

Doubter: Why isn't Jesus called Emmanuel?

Doubter: According to Josephus, many people claimed to be
Messiahs (meaning "the Anointed One") and prophets, and were killed by the
Romans. Jesus was not unique in this respect.

Doubter: Note this coincidence: since no Jew can speak the name
of God, his is referred to as "Abba". "Son of God" would be "bar Abba". So
"Jesus, the son of God" would be "Jeshu bar-Abba" in Aramaic. Some manuscripts
of Matthew (dating from the fourth century) use Barabbas' full name, Jesous
Barabbas. "The 'Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine', by Augustinus Merk,
edited in 1933 by the Istituto Biblico Pontificio, page 101, where the sentence
that is commonly rendered '...And they had then a notable prisoner, called
Barabbas...' (Mat 27:16) is written '...And they had then a notable
prisoner, Jesus called Barabbas...'" (David Donnini,
History and Myth). Why is this
never mentioned, and why do Biblical translators always use the short version of
Barabbas' name?

Doubter: In 180 AD Father Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons,
France, wrote that Jesus was not crucified, but rather lived to be about 50
years old. He says this is directly derived from John, the "disciple of the
Lord" (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., Book II, Chapter xxii, sections 3,4,5;
Ante-Nicene Fathers I, 391-2) (Jeff Lowder, The Resurrection - Hoax or
History?).

Doubter: Jews had the right to execute a death sentence, and
could have executed Jesus themselves:

Herod executed hundreds of Jews

the famous adulteress who was about to be stoned by the Jews survived
thanks to Jesus who said: "...He that is without sin among you, let him cast
the first stone at her...";

Saint Paul was present at the stoning of the first Christian martyr,
Stephen;

John the Baptist was executed by the Jews;

after Jesus' death the Synedrion threatened the apostles with the death
sentence;

James the apostle was stoned by the Jews in Jerusalem;

the same Jesus, according to what the Gospels affirm in many different
circumstances, ran the risk of being stoned by the Jews. (David Donnini,
History and Myth).

Christian: Yes, they could have, (although technically all
executions had to be approved by the Romans). The Jewish leaders were afraid
of Jesus, and wanted the Romans to take the blame for his death. The seven
cases listed must be understood in their respective contexts. In the first case,
Herod was an official of the state, and was thus given free reign to execute
(likewise for the fourth). In the other situations, the executions were mob
actions, done all the time by Jews and overlooked by the Romans in order to
give them more freedom. In none of the cases were the executions official
actions on behalf of the Sanhedrin.

Doubter: If the Romans are known for their justice, why would
Pontius Pilate torture Jesus and then have him crucified if he found him
innocent of any wrongdoing?

Christian: Actually, Pilate was known as a ruthless politico
who did what was expedient, not what was just. The Sanhedrin wanted blood and
he gave it to them.

Doubter: There were numerous forgeries of gospels in the early
years of Christianity, such as the "Gospel of Judas Iscariot" and the "Oracles
or Sayings of Christ". Some of the debatable works are in the Apocrypha, while
others such as the gospels written in the names of John and Peter were rejected
by the pious early Christians. Would people have to forge testimonies of
someone who really existed? If we accept that some of the works are genuine,
how do we know that the gospels in the New Testament aren't forgeries?

Doubter: Christ was a Jew, and his disciples were also. Why
then were the gospels written in Greek? Most Biblical scholars agree that the
gospels were originally written in Greek and not translated from Aramaic.

Doubter: Matthew says there were 41 generations from Abraham to
Jesus, and Luke says there were fifty-six. The gospels also contradict each
other in other areas (see the Inerrancy argument above). These contradictions
are not inconsequential, and show that the gospels may be less than completely
truthful.
Christian: (from Toni Lawrence) In the bible
"son of" and "was begotten of" could mean son, or grandson, or anyone
on down the line. Those terms just indicate "is a descendant of."
In this way genealogies include different people based on what they
are trying to communicate. For example - the Gospel according to
Matthew was directed at the Jews, therefore he traces his genealogy
back to Abraham for the sole purpose of proving Jesus's credibility as
the messiah since the old testament says that the messiah will be a
son of David (read descended of) who was a son of Abraham. The Gospel
according to Luke, on the other hand, was directed at gentiles who
definately weren't intimately familiar with the bible's prophecies of
the messiah and probably had never read it. In Luke's gospel he is not
merely trying to establish lineage, but he is tracing Jesus's origins
back to Adam and back to God Himself step by step.

Doubter: Contemporaries of Jesus didn't know him: Philo was a
Jewish writer that was born before the Christian era and died after Jesus. He
lived near Jerusalem, but never mentioned Jesus in his account of the Jews.
Josephus' "The Antiquities of the Jews" never mentioned Jesus until the fourth
edition had a forged passage inserted.

Doubter: Why is Jesus called "Jesus of Nazareth" when he was
supposed to be born in Bethlehem? The census spoken of in the Bible is not
mentioned in history (but this may not be something that would have been
recorded by historians). Even if the census happened, it was not Roman custom
that the wife accompany the husband to his place of residence. Instead, the
head of the household could report, alone, to the authorities.

First, there never was a worldwide census under Augustus. Second, the
Palestinian census was undertaken by the Syrian legate, P. Sulpicius Quirinius,
in 6 to 7 C.E., about a decade after the birth of Jesus...Its occasion was the
annexation of Archelaus' territories under a direct Roman prefecture. Third,
and above all, even if Augustus had ordained a complete census of the Roman
world, and even if Quirinius had overseen its administration in Archelaus'
territories, the Roman custom was to count you in the place of your domicile or
work and not in that of your ancestry or birth. That is little more than common
sense. Census was for taxation; to record people in their ancestral rather than
their occupational locations would have constituted a bureaucratic nightmare.
(John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991))

Doubter: The Trinity makes very little sense, especially when
one considers that Jesus prayed to God, said that the father was greater than
him, and said "Father, why have you forsaken me?"

Christian: There is no place in the Bible where Jesus
explicitly says that he, the Holy Ghost, and God the father are one, nor is
there any place where he tells people to worship him. But there are examples
where he is referred to as God:

"Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who through
the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith
as precious as ours:" (2 Peter 1:1)

"while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing of our great
God and Savior, Jesus Christ," (Titus 2:13)

"Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of
Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen." (Romans 9:5)

"Thomas said to him, 'My Lord and my God!'" (John 20:28)

Doubter: Yes, there are places where Jesus does the things that
are typically attributed to God, and people often sometimes refer to him as God,
but Jesus himself never indicates that he is God, and nowhere is there any
indication that the Holy Spirit is anything but independent of God.

Doubter: There are great similarities between Christianity and
other religions. In particular there is Mithraism, whose God, Mithras:

Was born of a virgin.

Was born on the 25th of December.

Was considered to be the savior son of God.

Descended from heaven to earth

Had a last supper with 12 disciples.

Redeemed man from sin by shedding his blood.

Was crucified.

Rose from the dead after three days.

Had followers that practiced baptism, confirmation, and a supper at which
they would partake of their god through eating bread and wine.

Christian: Ronald Nash says in The Gospel and the Greeks
(page 47):

Allegations of an early Christian dependence on Mithraism have been rejected on
many grounds. Mithraism had no concept of the death and resurrection of its god
and no place for any concept of rebirth - at least during its early stages ...
During the early stages of the cult, the notion of rebirth would have been
foreign to its basic outlook ... Moreover, Mithraism was basically a military
cult. Therefore, one must be skeptical about suggestions that it appealed to
nonmilitary people like the early Christians. Perhaps the most important
argument against an early Christian dependence on Mithraism is the fact that
the timing is all wrong. The flowering of Mithraism occurred after the close of
the New Testament canon, too late for it to have influenced the development of
first-century Christianity.

Doubter: The "flowering" of Mithraism may have occurred after
the close of the canon, but the religion may have affected Christianity before
then.

Doubter: History knows nothing of the slaughter of the
innocents.

The crime for which today Herod is most notorious...was the massacre of the
little children recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. The historian Josephus, who
was of Hasmonaean descent, takes great delight in cataloging Herod's crimes.
Yet he does not mention this. This is extraordinary for if it happened it must
surely have been regarded as the worst of the king's atrocities. This omission
by Josephus places it in the realm of belief rather than history. (Peter
Connolly, Living in the Time of Jesus of Nazareth)

Doubter: Why would the woman (or women) go to Jesus' tomb to
anoint his body? He was already prepared for burial and covered in 100 pounds
of spices.

Doubter: If Christ was surrounded by disciples and enthusiastic
people, and was asked questions constantly by the Pharisees, why did anyone have
to betray him? He wasn't in hiding...

Doubter: Paul never mentions the virgin birth, Jesus' parents,
Jesus' place of birth, Jesus' area of ministry, "of Nazareth" is never used,
any of the miracles Jesus performed, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' parables,
the Lord's Prayer, the Roman trial, the empty tomb, or Jesus' bodily
resurrection.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:5 that the risen Jesus appeared to "Peter, and
then to the Twelve", which implies a lack of knowledge of Judas' suicide. In
addition, Paul shows no knowledge of John the Baptist, Judas, or Peter's
denials, even though the latter would have been useful in Galations 2:11-17. In
the thirteen Epistles he never quotes a saying of Jesus. And in 1 Corinthians
2:8 he doesn't seem to know about Pilate, saying that "the rulers" crucified
Jesus.

Why is Christianity's greatest writer so ignorant of the his savior? Paul was
a missionary, and one would expect that he would have mentioned these things in
order to prove the reality of Christ. On the other hand, the gospels, Josephus,
Roman historians, and early Christian writers know nothing of Jesus' appearance
to the 500.

In addition, Paul's concept of resurrection meant the transformation from a
dead physical body into a living spiritual one (i.e. not physical): "Flesh and
blood can never possess the kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 15:50). This may
explain why, despite Paul's visits to Jerusalem (as per Acts and Galatians), he
seemed to know nothing of the empty tomb.

Christian: Paul never mentioned these things because he didn't
need to. One must realize that he was writing to Christians who would have
already known many of the common things about Jesus' life. Perhaps there were a
few events that he was unaware of (such as the Sermon on the Mount), but it is
unfair to use an argument from silence against Paul, since it is very possible
that he knew of these things, but simply did not mention them.

On the issue of "the twelve", Paul most likely used this phrase for its symbolic
significance in the church. He might not have meant it literally so much as
figuratively as "the apostles". There is also the fact that the church
considered the number 12 to be so important that it chose to complete the
set by finding a new apostle that saw the risen Christ (Act 1:15-26). Since
Matthias was "one of those who bore us company all the while the Lord Jesus
was going about among us, from his baptism by John until the day when he was
taken up from us" (Acts 1:21-22), he may well have been at Jesus' appearance,
making Paul's statement correct.

Lastly, in 1 Corinthians 2:8, Paul is not speaking of any particular person,
but rather of "the rulers" in general, of whom Pilate was one.

Doubter: According to ancient Jewish Law:

Legal actions could not be brought in a private house, but only in the
proper place: in the temple area called the "Beth Din", the seat of the Great
Sanhedrin, for capital offenses.

Legal actions can not be brought at night-time,

Legal actions could not be brought on the eve of a holiday,

A sentence could not be pronounced on the basis of an extorted confession

Death sentences could only be pronounced at least 24 hours after the
interrogation. (David Donnini,
History and Myth).

It was also not a crime to call oneself "son of God". In fact is was commonly
used, as was "son of the truth", "son of the light" and "son of the darkness".

Even if Jesus was guilty of blasphemy, it was not any of the Roman's concern.
The traditional resolution would be to try Jesus in a Jewish court and then
stone him to death if he was guilty. In other words, it was well within
the Jews' rights to try Jesus themselves.

Doubter: Why would a Roman guard accept a bribe or fall asleep
when doing so would
surely mean his death? Would the Jews break the Sabbath by approaching Pilate
and asking him to seal the tomb? Why would Pilate have granted a guard for
something he surely would have found to be absurd?

Doubter: Why didn't the disciples invite people to come and
talk to Jesus during the forty days that he spent with them (Acts 1:3)?

Doubter: One would expect a trickster to be able to fool many
people, except those that know him best. We see that when Jesus goes back to
his home town: "And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, 'Only in
his home town and in his own house is a prophet without honor.' And he did not do
many miracles there because of their lack of faith." (Matthew 13:57-58).
In actuality, miracles were often done in the presence of non-believers, and
sometimes in order to show that he was indeed to Messiah. Jesus' strange lack of
ability can be attributed to the skepticism of people who knew him well.